Try This First When You’re in X Guard

The X Guard is a hybrid open guard / half guard position, first popularized by Marcelo Garcia.

There are a million sweeps, finishes, and follow-ups from the X Guard. Everything from kneebars and omoplatas, to fancy upside-down backwards flipping sweeps, to techniques that take you directly to rear mount.

But I don’t suggest starting with any of these techniques…

Don’t get me wrong – I use a lot of these advanced moves myself. Seeing the look on your opponent’s face after you flip him head-over-heels is totally worth the effort required to learn these moves.

But most of these techniques rely on your opponent giving you a specific energy. And the easiest way to get that reaction is to force him to respond to another attack.

That’s why when I’m in X Guard I almost always use the ‘Standup Sweep’ first.

This is a super powerful guard sweep that quite often works the very first time you try it.

But even if your opponent manages to counter your Standup Sweep, then by doing so he usually gives you other openings which you can exploit.

To use the boxing analogy one more time, the standup sweep is the ‘jab’ that sets up most of your other X Guard attacks

Here’s a 2:36 video breakdown of the Standup Sweep, the very first sweep you should attack with when you’re in the X Guard: